by Faith Hunter
I went still for a long slow moment. Without taking my eyes from her bluish lavender ones, I slowly eased the Smith and Wesson mini-cannon back into the plastic casing. It kept me from shooting her with the big gun.
“As a blood-servant, I have an excellent sense of smell,” she went on. “Lincoln tells me you smell of sex and war and rushing water in a deep glen. He’s poetic, is our Linc. You don’t smell human. So what are you?”
“None of your business,” I said, sitting back, the words coming slowly.
“But it is. You are providing security services for a high-level parley that directly affects my current and future lifestyle, and my decision whether to attempt to become a Mithran or remain a blood-servant. Everything you do and everything you are is my business.”
“Take it up with Leo,” I said.
“I have. He was not forthcoming.”
“Because he doesn’t know what she is,” Brandon said. I had almost forgotten he was there, he’d been so silent and still.
“Impossible,” Mooney said.
“Fact. None of the Mithrans know what she is,” Brandon said, “though Leo’s Mercy Blade may know and simply isn’t saying. He calls her the ‘little goddess.’”
“I’m not a goddess,” I said, sounding disgruntled, knowing I needed to get the spotlight off of me. “But I am hungry.” I looked at Adelaide, thinking rude might work. “You said you were Dacy’s daughter in life, which, as I understand it, means she had you in the natural human way. Before or after she was turned? How old are you? You have to be old.”
Adelaide laughed, a tinkling amusement that made my own laughter sound like a mule braying. “Leo told me you were direct.”
I figured that was a ladylike way of saying I was vulgar, but since I was going that way, I couldn’t gripe. I slouched down in the butter-soft leather and waited, watching her.
“I’m in my early eighties. If I want to keep my youth, it would be wise to risk being turned in the next decade. Which is why I want to know what you are.” She was tenacious. A lawyer would have to be. I sighed but didn’t answer. Adelaide looked at Brandon. “Elf?” Meaning me.
“Leo says no. Grégoire says no. She isn’t elf, were, or anything they know. Though they do scent cats and birds and dogs on her, and she doesn’t own pets.”
I looked out the window. They were talking about me as if I was tied to a lab table, but I couldn’t complain. I’d started the rudeness. They had never smelled anything like me, because the only other skinwalker Leo had ever scented had gone to the dark side and killed, eaten, and stolen the body and life and scent of Leo’s own son. Long before Leo ever got a whiff of him again, he smelled like vamp and family. I had killed the imposter.
I leaned to the small fridge and opened the door, taking out and opening a Yuengling Lager, which gave me something to do with my hands besides shooting the two blood-servants with one of the lovely weapons. After an uncomfortable silence, during which I realized I hadn’t been offered the beer I’d taken, the blood-servants examined me while I scrutinized the city of Asheville in the afternoon light.
The city is in a valley surrounded by mountains, having expanded its borders in all directions. Downtown, however, is small and close; a silent five minutes later, despite the Sunday afternoon tourist traffic, we were pulling up in front of Shaddock’s BBQ. The sign out front showed a picture of two soldiers, Confederate and Union, eating together over a campfire and the remains of a roasted spitted pig. The sign was amusing, as the vamp owner had been turned by a Union soldier vamp on the battlefield of Monocacy, on July 9, 1864. I figured the two soldiers had spent their getting-to-know you dinner over the throat of a human, not a cooked pig, but I’d been wrong before. I climbed out of the car when it stopped and led the way inside, ignoring the sidelong glance shared by the servants. Inside, I took a seat at a party-sized table and watched as Brandon hung his jacket on a hook, revealing broad shoulders and an economy of movement. Clothes were wasted on him. Which was a totally inappropriate thought.
To combat the images of Brandon and his twin posed half-naked on the cover of a romance novel, I ordered three hogshead baskets (the largest order the place offered) of smothered fries, a large Coke, and a number four—pulled pork with all the fixin’s. I was nowhere near finished with the day’s activities and I needed protein, fats, and caffeine until I shifted or slept twelve hours. The two servants ordered and then chitchatted about the weather while we waited for fries and my security guys. I learned that a cold front was moving south fast, and was expected to barrel into the region behind the hurricane. We’d have an end-of-summer storm, heavy rain, followed by sweater weather. Beast purred thinking of a hunt in cool temps, and a snarky smile pulled at my lips.
Brandon lifted his brows at the sight. Adelaide repeated the gesture. It had to be a class thing. It was so polite and understated, and yet so superior. I shook my head and waved my snark away.
The fries and the guys all got to our table at the same time, Derek taking the seat beside me, his thigh shoving my chair down the long table. “Injun Princess,” he said to me. To the other two he said, “B-twin. Pretty lady.”
Wrassler pulled up a sturdier chair from another table. “Legs,” he said to me, and nodded to the others. Both men had scoped out the place and everyone in it upon entering. Wrassler instinctively angled his chair to watch the front entrance. Derek sat to cover the windows, the rest of the building, and the street, as I had. Instinctive, hardwired security measures. They placed their orders and then everyone turned to me. Like choreography.
I suppressed a chuckle and said, “Okay. Sit rep. We got two werewolves in the area. They probably chased us here.” Derek and his boys had slaughtered the Lupus pack, so my use of “us” was truth. “The grindylow swam and/or hitched a ride on a boat from New Orleans, chasing his master, the were-cat Kemnebi, who is vacationing on the Tennessee side of the mountains.”
Brandon went still. “The were-cat is here? And you didn’t see fit to inform us?”
Adelaide looked back and forth between us. “This were-creature is dangerous?”
“No. He’s a high-level ambassadorial type with the Party of African Weres and the IAW,” I said. I narrowed my eyes at Brandon. “He’s sixty miles away and working a monthlong drunk. If you have a problem with not knowing, take it up with Leo. He’s the boss. It was need-to-know. You didn’t need to know, before. Now you do. Get over it.”
I ate several fries while they all took that in, and I nearly moaned with the flavor. The fries were smothered with chili, cheese, jalapeños, red beans, sour cream, and ketchup, like nachos but with potatoes. To die for. Wrassler, the easiest-going guy I knew, had no problem with need-to-know intel, and was making inroads on his basket of fries. Derek was thinking and nibbling on the basket sitting in front of the blood-servants. Who hadn’t touched the greasy bit-a-heaven.
“Lastly, and maybe most important, I was attacked by a blood-servant that none of you claim to recognize.” Adelaide’s back went stiff at the implied insult. You’d a thought I whapped her nose with a newspaper. “And if he wasn’t one of yours, then we have an unknown vamp interested in the parley proceedings.” Which would complicate everything, though complications were nothing new when dealing with vamps.
When Brandon and Adelaide had had time to digest the semi-insult and info, I drank down the Coke and said, “The problems are”—I raised a balled fist, extending a finger—“the werewolves are trying to make the vamps look guilty for the attacks”—I raised another finger—“while simultaneously trying to create mates and rebuild their pack.” I raised a third. “The grindy is chasing them to punish them for attacking humans”—a fourth went up—“and the were-cat is drunk as two skunks in mourning for his dead mate.” My thumb went up, fingers splayed. “Leo and the IAW want me to hunt down and kill the wolves.” I raised the index finger of my other hand. “And that means working at night.” I dropped my hands. “All that, on top of a high-level parley Leo ha
s resisted for decades, humans protesting, media attention, and interest by an unknown vamp. I need to know one thing—can y’all handle security without me for a bit?”
Derek said, “We can handle it. If pretty boy knows how to work a headset.”
“I was working com units when you were in knee britches, sonny,” Brandon said.
“Knee britches? Wrong century, white boy.”
“Stop,” I said, waving the waitress over when she appeared uncertain about interrupting with our meals. The tension at the table was making the staff nervous. “Can you work together or not? ’Cause if you’re going to act like twelve-year-olds, I’ll look for other help. Like Chen.” I glanced at Adelaide, who smiled slightly.
Derek snorted. Brandon swiveled to me. I raised my brows at him, mimicking his hoity-toity expression, and stuffed a forkful of pork in my mouth, sauce on my lips. Deliberately crude.
“We’ll manage,” he said.
“Good,” I said through the food. Then I chewed and swallowed. “You boys chat. I gotta go to the ladies room.” I made my way to the room with the cow on the door, a cow wearing three brassieres with six udders stuffed up high and proud. The bull’s room was just as indelicate, but involved something that looked like six feet of horns and a Speedo. I felt, more than saw, Adelaide follow me. Now what?
CHAPTER TEN
I Sleep with Vamps for a Living
I did my business, aware that she did the same. I stopped at the mirror, undoing my hair and rebraiding it, waiting on her. Women wearing stockings or pantyhose took longer than women in jeans. The lighting claimed I needed some color. Lipstick. Blush. Mascara. Something. I braided my hair, watching her feet in the stall. If they spread and braced she might be pulling a weapon.
Adelaide flushed, opened the door—no weapon—and left the stall, meeting my eyes in the mirror; she washed her hands at the sink, standing beside me, still holding my gaze. She was amused, as if she had been betting with herself that I was watching for a gun. I couldn’t help it. I grinned back. She said, “You do yank their chains.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“As often as possible,” she amended.
I gave a head shrug, a tilt of acceptance. “You wow them with your looks and charm, and keep them in their places panting after you. Looks and charm aren’t my strengths. I have to make do with moxie and muscle.” We still hadn’t met eyes directly, the mirror acting as intermediary. But this woman wanted something from me, and I hadn’t figured out what.
“You really have no idea how beautiful you are.” It was an incredulous statement, not a question, and she looked sad.
I snorted, not trying to be delicate. “I know exactly how beautiful I am. I’m not. I have good bone structure, but striking is the best I can do. Now, when I get all doodied up, and my pal Molly does my face, I do better than striking. But I’ll never be beautiful.”
“Mmm.” Adelaide pulled towels and dried her hands. “They all stared at your backside when you left the table.”
“I have a nice butt. Great legs. No class.”
“You chose to display little class,” she amended again.
I leaned my weight on both hands, against the counter, still holding her eyes in the mirror. I let a bit of snarl enter my voice. “Are you trying to be my best pal?”
“You aren’t making it easy,” she said, exasperated. She leaned in as well, her posture copying mine. “Do you know how difficult it is to find a friend who is as tall as I am? Who doesn’t make me feel like a lumbering giant? Who might understand the life of a blood-servant? Who isn’t chasing after me to get close to my mother?” The last was said with a soft undertone of old anguish.
My face fell. Crap. She was serious. After a long, silent moment, I said, “Yeah. To the tall part.” I studied her cornflower blue eyes. They were earnest, a hard emotion to fake. “So . . . you really are trying to be my friend?”
“And I have no idea why I’ve bothered. You are a pain in the ass.”
I laughed. She didn’t. I stepped away from the mirror and looked at her. She stepped back and met my gaze. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay? Okay what?”
“Yeah. Okay. Let’s be friends.”
An expression I’d never have expected flashed across her face. Delight. Which was just weird. Weird that someone wanted to be my friend. And not because I was famous—sorta—or different, or killed vamps for a living. But because I was tall. And because I understood.
Even Molly had become my best pal because I’d intervened between her and a pack of witch-haters way back when. Adelaide wanted to be my friend because she was tall. And lonely. And that I understood totally. I let one corner of my mouth curl back up. “You do know that I’ll never love dressing up like a girl. We’ll never go shopping or to the spa for facials and pedicures. We’ll never have anything in common.”
“Except height and similar awareness of life-with-vamp,” she said.
“Yeah.” I put out my hand, knowing that this part might ruin the possibility of friendship between us. “Jane Yellowrock. I kill vamps for a living.”
She took my hand. “Adelaide Mooney. I sleep with vamps for a living.”
Which shot ice water through my veins. I clasped her hand tighter, electricity zigzagging through me, chilling my skin. Her palm was soft and delicate, her fingers long and slender but powerful, holding mine. “You don’t have to,” I said softly.
“Neither do you.”
I felt the grin pull across my face. “I don’t want to like you. But I do.”
“Good. BFFs. For real.”
No one said BFFs anymore, but she was eighty years old. It was hard for the older servants to keep up with current jargon. “Okay. Deal.” And honest to God, she teared up, her bluish-lavender eyes swimming. “If you cry every time we agree on something,” I growled, “it’s going to be annoying.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “We aren’t going to agree on much.”
I laughed, her tinkling laughter skipping across mine like stones on a lake. “There is that,” I said.
Slowly she let go of my hand. “Thank you.”
“Likewise. Now. I gotta get outta here. I need to make an appointment and then get a couple hours of shut-eye, and then I have to hunt werewolves.”
“Sounds like fun.” She produced a card like a prestidigitator. “My transportation service. Tell them I sent you. Set up an account with them and they’ll be at your disposal. But just so you know, they’ll tell me every location where they pick you up and where they take you. So if it’s a secret, don’t use them.”
I took the card. “I like you. And I feel like that’s a huge mistake.”
“Ditto,” she said. “Be safe.” Adelaide left the ladies room while I dialed the number on the card and ordered a ride. Back in the dining room, I finished my pork and then walked out. I had places to be and wolves to track.
* * *
Adelaide’s service turned out to be a chartered driver company, like an upscale taxi service, but run on retainer. I didn’t expect to need it, but who knew? Back at the hotel, crime scene tape had been plastered all over my door. I paused for a moment before entering, shoving the damaged door open, ducking under the tape. A patch of bloody carpet had been removed. The room had been vacuumed by CSI techs. The linens were gone. And my things were no longer in my room. No clothes. No guns on the coffee table. I went to the closet and reached into the back corner, my fingers finding the box with the obfuscation spell on it. I pulled it forward and tucked it under my arm. The contents shifted slightly with the action, a deadened, hollow sound.
“Your belongings and weapons are in our suite.” I turned to see Brian standing behind me, yellow tape between us. I hadn’t heard him, the carpet in the hotel deep enough to muffle his footsteps. He was wearing slacks and a starched white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a tan holster over it. His feet were bare, which was endearing in an odd sort of way. “All except the weapon you shot the man with,
” he continued. “The cops have it and I rather doubt you’ll get it back. Ever.” He fell silent, waiting for me to process what he’d said. The cops weren’t giving my gun back. Cops don’t give weapons back when the victim of a shooting dies. But they had let me go so . . . the man I’d shot had only recently passed on. Kicked the bucket. Died.
Slowly, like a wrecking ball falling, I realized what had happened. I’d killed a human. A thinking, breathing being with a soul. Not a rogue-vamp killing machine. Not a rabid were. I’d ripped him out of existence. And for hours I hadn’t thought about him. Not once. A cold mist of shock billowed slowly through me, expanding, filling me with the icy reality. I looked away from Brian, wondering why I hadn’t thought about the man I had killed until now. Wondered why I hadn’t considered the possibility that I’d killed him. I’d thought him only wounded, and blood-servants don’t kill easy. I killed a human being. I wrapped my arms around me, the box pressing into my side, staring at the bare patch of floor. There was a faint stain of blood on it. I could still smell the stink of gunfire. I killed a human being.
As if he knew what I was feeling, Brian said, “The lead investigator said the guy had no ID on him. Prints came back as a made man out of New York. He disappeared off the law enforcement radar two years ago, possibly going to work as a contract killer for a renegade Mithran.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Two hits have been laid at his door in the last sixty days, one in New Orleans.” Which meant he had long arms, whoever the vamp master was.
I looked up to see that Brian was wavering. And then I realized my eyes were full of tears. When I managed a breath, the air moving down my throat ached. He continued. “He came in through our room. If we hadn’t both been in Grégoire’s suite you would have been safe.”
“And you might have been”—I swallowed through the tight pain in my throat—“dead.” I moved toward him and ducked beneath the yellow tape, closing the door after me. We stood in the hallway, close enough to smell his aftershave. “So, I’m bunking with you guys?”
